It’s completely unbelievable as a story. You couldn’t make it up. It’s too far-fetched. Three women have the most amazing experience of their whole lives. Three women have everything they’ve ever known about life and death turned upside down.
And they don’t talk about it. Come on. I’m, not being unPC or gender specific here but, in my limited experience, one of the many differences between men and women is that women talk about things. Everythings. And men tend to stew.
'How was your day dear?'
'Well I had a terrible row with that Sharon and then my boss phoned and he gave me a tough time and after that Peter came and said never mind I’ll buy you a sandwich and aren’t sandwiches expensive these days but it was a nice one with brie and grapes but they do put too much mayonnaise in them I wish they didn’t put mayonnaise in everything anyway, what was I saying….'
'How was your day dear?'
'OK.'
One of these two answers is by a man and one by a woman.
So I wondered how the secret got out. And I reckoned that Salome, on account of her having a different name as all the other women in the Bible who all seem to be called Mary something or other… I reckon that Salome must have leaked. So here’s what I reckon she did. I think she told her Mum.
And I’ve had a guess at what she said.
Dear Mum,
You know I told you about the man we’ve been listening to a lot recently, Jesus. Well some strange things have happened these last few days. I don’t really know what to make of them.
The first bit wasn’t strange. It was horrible. Jesus had been upsetting all kinds of people. He seemed to annoy the ones who know a lot about religious things. He told them they didn’t know their own laws. He told them that you could work on the Sabbath if it was to do good things. He told them Roman taxes weren’t so bad. Then he went to the Temple and absolutely trashed the place. Tipped all the tables upside down. Threw out the money changers. What a mess. Pigeon droppings everywhere once he’s finished. I don’t think I’ve ever see him so angry. Or them.
And that did it. Between them the religious people and the Roman authorities stitched him up. They had him sentenced to death without either side taking responsibility for doing it. Don’t really know how it happened.
And they crucified him. I didn’t want to watch but I felt I had to. It was horrible. He really screamed when they banged the nails into his hands and feet and dropped the cross into the soil with a jolt. Then he just hung there, bleeding and suffocating for about six hours. And they tell me that was a quick death. It went dark for a bit. Weird that. And someone told me the curtain in the Temple got ripped. That’s more work for the sewing club then.
Joseph put the body in a new tomb cut into the rock. It was odd that. The Romans usually just let the bodies hang there for the birds to eat.
And on the Sunday morning me and Mary and, er, Mary went with some spices to put on Jesus’ body. We were the first spice girls but a little understated. Instead of Scary, Baby and Posh we were Depressed, Youthful and Social Climber. We were talking on the way because we realised that they would have rolled a stone across the entrance to the tomb. We didn’t think we’d be strong enough to roll it away. We didn’t think. But we still walked.
And when we got there the stone had been rolled away. It was a massive stone. I bet the guy who did it had fantastic muscles and a fine body. Wonder if I can find him…
Anyway we went in the tomb and as our eyes got used to the gloom we saw a young man. Not with big muscles. Bit disappointing in the body department if I’m honest, and he had weird dress sense. White robes are so last season.
We were scared. The guy looked cool and, well almost angelic, not like a grave-robber at all. And he just said, ‘He isn’t here’. Durr. We could see that. There was only supposed to be one thing in the tomb and even though the tomb was getting a bit full by then it certainly didn’t have a dead body in it. We could see the place where the body had been. The young man said, ‘God has raised Jesus to life.’
Like yeah.
Well Mum I never did like ghost stories. The man told us to go and tell Peter and the others. We were going to but we got more scared in case we got the blame for going to the wrong tomb, or leaving the stone rolled away or talking to strangers or, or, or … well I don’t know what but we were scared.
So the funny thing is that although, all through his healings, Jesus had told people not to tell anyone what he’d done they always did and crowds followed him everywhere because of his power. This time, when the guy told us to tell we didn’t. We just shook and ran and walked and talked and shook a bit more and went home.
Maybe Peter will know what happened to the body. I’ll ask him tonight.
Lots of love
Salome
(St. Leamington Spa 2003)
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